Davey Wavey

They charge it when you book it. Give your bank a day to see it in pending status. Feel free to call your bank if you are really worried.

I tell you like I tell everyone...type long stuff in notepad and cut-paste it in so you don't lose it. So many sites have timeouts or problems that make you lose your work.

Good luck talking to someone. I just called yesterday and they said the players club no longer takes direct calls. They said send emails to casino@carnival.com and someone will answer you in a week.

Oh, the premier cruise offers this year have come about a week after the previous one expired. The other regular casino offers have been constant, usually overlapping the previous offer with the same offer for later cruise dates.

Can confirm they offered upgrade before booking. If the offer is still available (was there a booking deadline?) they may be able to rebook you.

A couple of days ago, I got an email telling me that my cruise was now a "Carnival Live Presents Styx"

 

I read it all but really have no idea the impact. Are these types of cruises different? I mean, we are not going to cancel or anything but I am curious how this might be different from a 'regular' old cruise.

 

Thanks!

Part of your entertainment will be a few live shows by Styx. They will board the band at some port, they will do their shows, then disembark. They have been offering these Live cruises all year and don't seem to be any different from other cruises at all. The bands are not something so popular as to cause the cruise prices to go up (they have actually been consistently listed as the least expensive prices available) or the ship to be extra crowded. I suspect you won't even notice any difference from a regular cruise.

Little Stirrup and Coco are the same place though, right?

 

And NCL has a private island near there? Is it Great Stirrup Cay??

Yes little stirrup is now Coco, renamed by RCI when they PURCHASED the island after first obtaining the lease for it, and yes, NCL owns Great Stirrup Cay.

There is nothing informal about Carnival purchasing the island. There is nothing formal in the financial statements of Carnival, RCI or filings with the Bahamas about any purchases or change in ownership.

First you have to play slots while on a previous cruise.

You do not have to play slots. I receive offers up to a free cabin and have never touched a slot machine. You have to use your S&S while playing anything in the casino to have your activity tracked to have an Ocean Players Club profile automatically created. Then it is a guess as to what level of activity will get you offers.

It's making me check for cruise discounts everyday.

On Princess I bought casino cash gifts to myself, a few hundred each month before my cruise.

Where do you find this? I wonder if Carnival has something similar.

I play twice during a cruise, each is 5 bucks, $10 total. I guess I don't qualify for payers club lol :p

If you use your S&S card, you do qualify for Players Club, but you probably don't qualify for any offers.

They track your activity through your VIPF number. You will only have 1 account for the first time you use your S&S card and any subsequent cruises will be linked to your previous activity. I did see once when my wife somehow ended up with 2 VIPF numbers, but that's a different story.

Simple. Go into the casino and put your sign and sail card into a slot machine. You can download $300 at a time from your card to a slot machine with a $3,000/day limit. If you want the money to play table games, you just upload the money from the slot machine back to your account and take your card to the casino cage to get the cash. I just did this last week on the Glory and there was absolutely no charge to do this.

That 3% charge is what I wanted to avoid and why 2% for travelers cheques was a less expensive option. As a note, the 3% fee is WAIVED on premier cruises...one of the benefits! I carried almost no cash and just did advances in the casino the night before each port for whatever cash I needed the next day.

So I knew about the slot thing but no one seems to know if it works without playing the slots. For instance, if I do $300 download and then immediately do a $300 upload to my account, will that cause a problem? And if I do this 10 times over the course of a week, will that cause a problem? I have read more than a few times that it works so long as you actually play the slots, but that people have been refused a cash out if they played no slots. I thought if I had to pay 3%, maybe I would just play 3% on the slots and upload the remainder to get cash. I really don't want to be stuck with a bunch of money on a "slots" account when I don't like playing slots at all.

And I don't have a passport, just a passport card, but I'm going to get one. I have a feeling that if things get worse with the ebola that they are gonna know where everyone's been traveling prior to boarding a ship.

Even without current events, it's a reminder that should you need to be evacced how much extra trouble you would have to go through to get clearance to fly. Let's say you need emergency treatment and they wanted to air ambulance you out of someplace like Belize and you have no passport. I wonder what the rules are for either bypassing the passport requirement or how long it would take to get an emergency one.

Whatever might happen, we got passports before our first cruise because I don't like the idea of being stuck in another country if anything bad happens. It just amplifies the problem.

I read plenty of articles that claimed that while a cruise ship would seem to bring money to the local economy, a vast majority of passengers drove in the day of the cruise and went straight to the ship. This is very different from other ports that cater to airport passengers who tended to fly in/out and stay a day before/after the cruise. The downsides of more infrastructure spending, additional traffic/pollution, etc., would seem to offset the positives. Off course, these were news articles so you can't really believe them. I know Charleston looks like an attractive 9/10 hour drive, so I would fall into those just passing through. We don't know which side to believe, so we no longer consider Charleston as an option. Fortunately, Carnival is supposed to stay in/return to Baltimore and New York.

I don't understand why they sell rooms that have that much noise. Are they hoping some people will just suffer and not complain?

Some people, like me and my wife, sleep right through it. We hear it but we have our white noise fan and can sleep through pretty much anything, even the overhead annoucements in the hallways or directly in the room.

No suffering involved...

"A Carnival spokeswoman, however, said the ship made its scheduled visit to Belize Thursday. “Passengers were free to disembark there for the day other than the guest and her traveling companion who are in voluntary isolation.”

 

In its own statement Thursday, the the Belize government said it “was contacted today by officers of the U.S. Government and made aware of a cruise ship passenger considered of very low risk for Ebola…. Nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution, the Government of Belize decided not to facilitate a U.S. request for assistance in evacuating the passenger through the Phillip Goldson International Airport.”

The Belize news said the passenger had shown signs of Ebola and was on a tender headed for shore to be evacuated by air ambulance to the U.S. for treatment, when the Belizean government refused admittance to the country. The passenger and husband were then supposedly held on the tender for an extended period of time as Carnival would not allow them to reembark the ship.

News stories...who can you Belize?

This is a lab worker, not someone who came in contact with a patient...This person worked in a lab, apparently as a supervisor, where samples were processed. No one has suggested that she came in contact with the fluids.

Actually, the news story said she actually handled the lab samples, which is why the entire lab was not being monitored. But, you know the news...who knows what the real story is.

Stop the hysteria.

I respectfully refuse. It keeps my cruise prices down.

Order a turkey sandwich with that BLT and make your own club. Top it off with a chocolate cake and a milk and sleep like a baby after a late night.

Sounds good! I'm gonna do it and tear off a crust in your honor. :D

Just one little point to add.

If you have a set dining time, they open the dining room doors at the time. There WILL be a huge line waiting at the doors. On the first night, the line will seem to move pretty slowly as people are finding their table for the first time or requesting changes. If you are at the end of the line, you may not be seated until 25 minutes or so after your dining time. After the first night, that big line will be there but will usually be seated within 5 minutes of the door opening.

The point is don't get discouraged when you see the huge line and think you will be waiting forever to be seated. The first night is slow, the following nights it's very quick.

Selfish people will be selfish. Even the most at risk of those being monitored don't seem inclined to cancel their trips or plans.

Those initial 70 being monitored were NOT told they couldn't travel. They just issued that order on Thursday night. It just lets you know their "monitoring" meant absolutely nothing. When they say it's all under control, it means absolutely nothing. Until normal people start to panic and demand they take this seriously, they will continue to play light and loose with their precautions.

Our son is the manager at a large "big name" bank and the staff gets a real laugh when people come in asking for TC. There are so many other options to get cash or pay for expenses.

For example if I need $2500 cash to play in the casino, please ask your son what other option I have to get cash. Anyone, please let me know the least expensive way to do this without carrying a big pile of cash. I'm not trolling...I really want to know.

Unless you want to bring thousands (a lot) in cash, I think travelers checks are a bit over careful. The rings on your finger are probably worth much more than the cash you think you have to be careful of.

The rings on my finger are insured. Cash is not.

The bank I usually get my cheques from was also out and said they would not be replacing them. They said to call any branch before going to confirm they were available. Our local AAA still carries them. You can easily cash them at guest services although I seem to remember they had a daily limit of $500. As a side note, our excursions through third parties say on their confirmation email that final payment can be made in travelers cheques. Out of curiosity, I asked the tour guides if they accepted cheques and they said they would but seemed unhappy to do so. They said they have problems finding a local bank to accept them.

I will still use cheques...they are still best for MY purposes. Your mileage may vary. The 2% fee is still the lowest cost of carrying money without it being cash. The prepaid cards (not including the direct deposit cards) the industry are switching to carry either a monthly fee, a load fee, and/or a transaction fee, plus the possibility of usage fees like an ATM fee or credit card use fee--for instance using it in the Carnival casino for table game chips would cost an additional 3% fee. I guess when travelers cheques finally die off, I'll just switch to using a credit card.

Our lanyard didn't have a pouch. It wasn't the usual plastic coil thingy. It was black fabric with Carnival Players Club in red letters with a plastic clip to hold your card.

There will be a free movie playing on two channels throughout most of the day. There is also, I found out unfortunately when my daughter watched half of Hunger Games one day and the other half another day and I got billed for the movie twice, on demand movies available.

The best I see is 7 day interior for $164 per person with $100 credit. I would be there if I lived within driving distance of the port.

Well, you kind of do. The children sailing get the credits though...

I booked a balcony cabin for 5 on Triumph and my children got sailing credits. Later, I booked 2 cabins at nearly twice the cost and got the same sailing credits. While I would disagree with almost all of the OP message, I do think if I pay for multiple cabins I should get points for them, even if there is a maximum number that I could claim per cruise.